Hades Hangmen Series by Tillie Cole

 

In all my reading years, which are many; many, many many, I’m going through something I’ve never quite experienced before.  I started a new to me series, The Hades Hangmen series by Tillie Cole.  I went into with thoughts of how it might go.  It’s a series about a motorcycle club and in the first book It Ain’t Me Babe, the president, Styx, has a severe stutter and is unable to speak to anyone except his best friend and VP.  He communicates with ASL and his VP translates for the rest of the club until they all learn it themselves.  Fascinating premise don’t you think?  I thought it might be something light hearted.

 

But I couldn’t have been more wrong if I tried.  These are the darkest books I’ve ever read and I thought I’d read dark books before.  These books are truly brutal.  This motorcycle club are bad to the bone.  They have no hesitation in murdering people if they thing warranted.  They party a lot, surrounded by “party girls” and are very, very promiscuous.  The language is graphic and the sexual abuse of women if front and foremost.  And I can not stop reading them.  The premise of the story is when Styx was a boy, the son of the president and heir apparent, under strange circumstances, meets a young girl, Mae, who is obviously under stress.  It’s only a brief meeting but it lasts with both of them for the rest of their lives and they seek each other out.

It’s now years later, Styx is leader and president of Hades Hangmen and long past any boyish innocence and Mae, along with her two sisters is a sexual slave of a pedophilic cult.  She is attempting to escape after she witnesses the death of her older sister at the hands of the monsters.  Her two younger sisters are completely brainwashed and believe the horrific tales they are told and refuse to leave with Mae.

 

What follows is a series of books that are the most compelling books I’ve read in years.  They are SO outside my box but they consume me.  All the books are interwoven with the same characters throughout.  While the different books highlight different characters, it’s more one long story.  I know that is common in Fantasy books but I don’t really read a lot of those – Lord of the Rings excluded.

 

The heroes are brutal, they’re graphic, they experience no sense of guilt and to put it mildly they are crude.  But as I read on they have some amazing qualities too.  They are fiercely loyal to each other.  Although they kill, they don’t kill the innocent, only monsters who are most often worse than them.  Although they deal in illegal weapons, they stay away from the worst things gangs are known for, human trafficking, drugs, and other nasty criminal activities.  But above all and why I keep reading, no sooner finishing one book then picking up the next one, is their absolute and total devotion to their women.  They would do anything for them, even as the song says:

 

Look into my eyes
You will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart
Search your soul
And when you find me there
You'll search no more

Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do
I do it for you

Look into your heart
You will find
There's nothin' there to hide
Take me as I am
Take my life
I would give it all
I would sacrifice

Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it, there's nothin' I want more
You know it's true
Everything I do
I do it for you

There's no love
Like your love
And no other
Could give more love
There's nowhere
Unless you're there
All the time
All the way, yeah

Look into your heart, baby

Oh, you can't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
I can't help it, there's nothin' I want more
Yeah, I would fight for you
I'd lie for you
Walk the wire for you
Yeah, I'd die for you

You know it's true
Everything I do
Oh
I do it for you

Everything I do, darling
And we'll see it through
Oh, we'll see it through
Oh yeah

Yeah
Search your heart
Search your soul
You can't tell me it ain't worth dying for
Oh yeah

I'll be there, yeah
I'd walk the wire for you
I will die for you

Oh yeah

I would die for you

I'm going all the way, all they way, yeah

*Lyrics dedicated to Wendy and she knows why.*

 

Their women, for most of the books are those women who have escaped or been rescued from the cult by the men of the Hades Hangmen.  They have been violated and abused and virtually been used as sex slaves from a very young age and been programmed into believing it is their fault and they deserve what they get.  These young women have been isolated so much they don’t know anything about the real world.  They come to the men broken in the cruelest of ways.  And these rough and bad motorcycle club members heal them.  They are gentle and caring and worshipful.  And the women themselves, while broken in some ways are so incredibly kind and brave and grateful, they bring out a side in the men I don’t think they know they have.  This is why I’m having such a hard time letting go of these books.  The depth and width and breath of this love is powerful and beautiful.  There are some books that affected me so deeply I can remember almost every detail about them years and years later.  Some books I can’t let go of and I’ve read it and as soon as I read the last page, start the same book all over again and then again.  My book system just won’t let go.  But I’ve never had that happen with a whole series before, not like this.

 

I’m on book 6 now though before finishing it, I had to go back to read the third book as it’s affected me the most.

 

In a way it’s frustrating.  There are so many other books I keep buying and wanting to read but these seem to be the only books I’m able to read for the time being.  I’ve tried others but it’s not worked so I think I’ll just have to follow this reading river until it comes to an end.

These are all of them.

So far

.....................

 

Recent Read

The Taming of the Rake by Kasey Michaels

Why this one: It was an impulse purchase. I’ve read her in the past and quite enjoyed her books but I’m not reading as many historicals these days so she kind of slipped my radar

Steam Level: Nice and toasty warm

Blurb: Charming, wealthy and wickedly handsome, Oliver "Beau" Blackthorn has it all…except revenge on the enemy he can't forget. Now the opportunity for retribution has fallen into his hands. But his success hinges on Lady Chelsea Mills–Peckman—the one woman with the power to distract him from his quest.

Desperate to escape her family's control, Lady Chelsea seizes the chance to run off with the notorious eldest Blackthorn brother, knowing she's only a pawn in his game. But as Beau draws her deep into a world of intrigue, danger and explosive passion, does she dare hope he'll choose love over vengeance?

My Thoughts: While I was reading this book I wondered why I hadn’t been reading as many historicals in recent times as I really enjoyed this book – everything about it. From the stubborn but not annoying (to me) heroine Chelsea Mills-Beckham, to the scrumptious hero Oliver (Beau) Blackthorn to the well drawn secondary characters, this book was such a pleasure to read.

Beau and Chelsea first meet years earlier when he is coming to call on her older and very spoiled sister. But alas, his suite is not at all welcome as he has the unfortunate stigma of being a bastard born. Not only is he thrown out of the home, he is whipped like a dog by the older brother.

Fast forward to years later and Chelsea is all grown up and about to be married against her will and wishes to a wet-mouthed dour reverend who has a secret hate on for women. Her brother, still a nasty piece, has changed his ways after a real scare with chicken pox and embraced the horrid man of the cloth. In order to escape this farce of a wedding,

Chelsea high tails it to the home of Beau and suggests they elope to Gretna Green, she to avoid marriage and to Beau’s benefit a way to get back for the humiliation done to him years ago. Beau agrees to the scheme to ‘get even’. Beau is currently being visited by his devil-may-care brother Puck and the three of them set off on a road trip to Gretna Green.

I found this book charming. I loved the character of Chelsea. I can see why she might get on some readers nerves, she’s quite bossy, but Beau or Oliver as she kept insisting on calling him, thought she was a ‘character’ and when the readers sees her through his eyes, well, I thought she was one too.

And Beau makes for a most fine hero. Although he’s been limited in society by his bastard status, he’s still managed to make a good life for himself. He made good friends when he joined the army after being treated so cruelly years earlier. He’s making a successful living looking after his fathers estates even though he can’t inherit them. While not wild about his situation and he does hold a certain anger at his parents because of their selfishness, especially his mother, he doesn’t hold any bitterness.

I also love the character of Puck, the youngest brother. He is with Beau and Chelsea much of the time and seems to be a real hoot. His book is out now too and although it didn’t get that high a grade at AAR, I still think I’ll give it a go if only to read more on the third rather mysterious black sheep brother Jack.

With books like this one out there, I think I’m going to have to rethink my reading habits and take up reading more historicals.

Grade: 4.75 out of 5

Alone on an island ------Update

Click on just about any romance blog these days and there is a Black Dagger Brotherhood post. These books have been compared to literary crack on more than one occasion. JR Ward's newest book, Lover Avenged, is out now and I feel a bit like I'm on a deserted island.

I read Dark Lover and I enjoyed it. I read Lover Eternal and I enjoyed it even more. I have Lover Awakened and Lover Revealed in the TBR pile but I'm not in any hurry to get to them. I really enjoyed Bella in Lover Eternal, but I didn't 'feel the love' for Zsadist and much to everyone's dismay when the read this, I didn't 'get' the Butch love at all and I didn't care for his love interest Marissa since she was a wuzz in Dark Lover. The ones after that didn't appeal to me at all because I'm not a fan of mulitple storylines - one of the reasons I quit Suzanne Brockman - and from what I've read, the BDB series abounds in them.

Oh I know I'm not really alone - there are others out there who haven't read this series or like me have tried them but just don't 'get' the hype of it all.

But still I'm left wondering why I don't appreciate this series the way so many do. Are there others out there who feel a bit lost when they don't relate to a series the way so many other do - say the JD Robb books? Now those I'm all on board with. Or how about the Pys-Changeling books by Nalini Singh? I'm also enjoying those and looking forward to the next on in the series. Do you ever scratch your head and wonder what you are missing?

*****~*~*~*~*~******

Ah thank you *g*- you have all made me feel ever so much better and not so alone. While many are still inhaling the BDB books, at least there are other series you may feel 'out of the loop' with. Whether it be the Sookie books, the Plum books, or the Bridgerton books (another series I didn't get) not all readers are going to get all books.